


Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range

by sdwolfpup



Series: Spies Like Us [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Boat Sex, Consent, F/M, First Time, Kiss or Die, Prequel, Speedos, Undercover Missions, both parties want what's happening here, horniness under pressure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:29:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29633292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup
Summary: Partners and not-quite-friends, Agents Lannister and Tarth are sent undercover on a boat in the middle of the sultry Summer Sea. If Jaime has to see Brienne in the skimpy bathing suit she's supposed to wear, he might have to throw himself into the ocean to prevent heat stroke. Unfortunately, he's got a mission to complete first, and so does she.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Spies Like Us [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2177337
Comments: 38
Kudos: 192





	Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to my spies smut swap fic, 'Binary Explosive,' though you don't have to have read that to understand this. I actually wrote this while I was in the middle of struggling with rewrites of that story -- and writing in general -- with the shameless encouragement of forbiddenfantasies, who this is obliquely dedicated to for listening to me complain nonstop about my smut swap woes and is still my friend. Also she suggested 'kiss or die,' which is perfect. My eternal thanks to BrynnMcK who is not only an amazing beta and friend, but also has convinced me Jaime would make riding a unicycle sexy. I love you both. ❤️

_**constant bearing, decreasing range** – When two boats are approaching each other from any angle and this angle remains the same over time, they are on a collision course_

* * *

Jaime has always liked the sea. Swimming, sailing, snorkeling – he's always felt at home there. He spent his childhood diving off the cliffs of Casterly, his teenage years barefoot and covered in salt spray when they took the catamaran out on weekend trips, his early twenties lounging on white sand beaches on every foreign shore when on leave. So it's not some hatred of the water that has him insisting to Catelyn Stark he can't go on this mission. It's entirely because of who she picks as his partner. Who she always picks as his partner. 

“There is no better option. You've both got the perfect cover and are available,” Catelyn tells him for the third time. By the tone of her voice, it's also the last. “Unless one of you loses a limb between now and next week, you're going.” 

Unfortunately, neither of them does, which is how Jaime finds himself on Euron Greyjoy's ostentatiously decorated yacht with Brienne Tarth – the most stubborn, idealistic, and frustratingly sexy agent in W.O.L.F. 

Not that Brienne would ever think of herself as sexy. Jaime is still sometimes surprised by his own reaction to her, especially given how little he looks at almost anyone else. But it's been impossible to ignore his growing interest for the last year, if not the entire four he's known her. They'd hated each other the first year, when Brienne had been a fresh-out-of-college volunteer and Jaime had been recruited from bodyguard work after his dishonorable discharge from the military. They'd fallen into a comfortable pattern of exchanging sneers and barbed comments, all while working together with unmatched success – until the mission in the Riverlands. Jaime had injured his hand, they had saved each other against impossible odds, and since then, they'd understood each other in a way no one else could. No longer enemies and not exactly friends, their snark had turned teasing, and their mutual respect had blossomed into trust. For how amorphous it is, it's possibly the healthiest relationship in Jaime's life. 

In the last year, the friendly familiarity of their back-and-forth has grown heated again, but this time it's not because they hate each other. No, _this_ time, it's because Jaime has had sweat-soaked, restless _dreams_ about Brienne. Has had to excuse himself from sparring with her thanks to awkward physical responses. Has, most embarrassingly, missed her when she's gone on missions without him, or even simply over the weekend when they're both in Winterfell and he has to wait until the office to talk to her again. It feels invasive to text her random thoughts when they're off work, even though they've seen each other naked. 

He thinks about that more than he should, too. 

Jaime knows how to kill a person in fifty different ways. He's studied the art of seduction and dance, can drive anything with wheels, can fly almost anything else. He's good with a gun and a blade and his mouth. Yet _somehow_ he still feels like a hapless fool trying to impress Brienne every time she's around. 

He misses the days when he didn't care so much what she thought about him. Though the specifics of when that might have been are hard to recall. Even the first year, he'd been annoyed that she'd hated him based on his reputation, when he'd given no fucks about anyone else. _It's because of her eyes_ he thinks, spotting them now at the back of the crowd gathering at the dock to board. She's learned to control her body in devastatingly effective ways, but she'll never learn to hide her eyes. They flicker over him briefly and then quickly away again, but Jaime doesn't miss the spark of acknowledgement and he's irritated at how _seen_ it makes him feel. 

The only saving grace of this particular mission is that they're intended to be strangers, which means there will be minimal contact. It's an easy enough task: Jaime and Brienne are attending Euron's thirtieth birthday party to separately search the enormous ship and find out where he's storing the weapons he's smuggling to a violent group in Lys. They're supposed to report back before the ship docks so W.O.L.F. can have the appropriate authorities waiting to arrest Euron, and to let Jaime and Brienne sneak away again. They're scheduled to rendezvous at a nondescript motel where they'll lay low for a few days – in separate rooms, thankfully – before flying home. Mission accomplished, bad guys brought in, Jaime barely has to see Brienne in the short-shorts Samwell had decided she'd needed to wear when they'd gone in for their gear fitting. 

Jaime refuses to even consider the bathing suit Sam had given her too. 

There's no reason either of them should have to wear those scraps of fabric, though. The party is – for Euron – casual and low-key. Or at least it was supposed to be, but the twenty-piece live band that jauntily plays as they board hints that this early assumption might be wrong. 

Two hours into it, Jaime discovers exactly how wrong it is. No one has been shot yet – which, if that keeps up, will be a first at a Euron Greyjoy party. But the alcohol is flowing and the wind is not, and the air in the middle of the becalmed Summer Sea is as pressing and thick as a sauna. Every man on the boat has stripped down to swim trunks or speedos, and the women are disappearing two and three at a time to reappear in a bounty of tiny bikinis and shiny, lotion-covered skin. The amount of flesh on display would be enough to fuel an extended city block of exotic dance clubs. None of it interests Jaime in the slightest, especially since he'd lost sight of Brienne an hour ago, thank the gods. Her legs in those shorts had been bad enough: a mile of pale flesh turning red in the heat, her thigh as long as his arm, the sheen of perspiration along the taut muscles of her calves that he wanted to lick. 

It had taken every last ounce of self-control he'd had just to focus on the random woman simpering at him, acutely aware of Brienne in the crowd behind him all the while. If he'd had to do his job while she was hovering in her own bikini... 

It's for the best that she's disappeared. 

Brienne may be missing, but the number of flirtatious partygoers has noticeably increased since Jaime had emerged in his own speedo. It's bright red and so low on his hips he's not sure why he even bothers wearing it; he'd look less conspicuous nude at this point. The speedo does do wonders for his package, though. Every person who's come up to him has not been shy about appreciating it with hungry stares. 

_I wonder if Brienne would appreciate it_ , he idly finds himself thinking, and then cuts off that thought with brutal finality. There can be no thinking about Brienne when he's wearing this.

Jaime excuses himself from the dark-haired beauty who's clinging tightly to his arm, and she pouts prettily at him when he peels her fingers off. 

“I need to use the bathroom,” he tells her with a wink. 

She presses her chest up against him. “I could go with you,” she says in a husky voice. “The bathrooms here are very private.” 

He leans towards her, skimming his hand over the curve of her waist. Her skin is slick with some sort of sunbathing oil. “The galley under the prow of the boat is even more private,” he breathes into her ear. Her soft breasts heave against his arm.

“I'm starving,” she tells him. “Maybe I'll run into you down there.” 

“Maybe you will,” he says, giving her a promising smile. 

They part ways and Jaime sighs in relief when he takes a chance to look back and sees she's already heading for the galley. _Perfect_. He'd checked the front of the boat when he'd disappeared to change into his swimsuit, so he knows he won't have any reason to go back there. Brienne is responsible for searching the rear of the boat, and she hasn't let him know whether she's found anything or not, but they've only got a couple of hours until they dock and there are still several decks of the middle to search. He needs to get to work. 

It will certainly be better than having to fake-flirt with the grabby attendees of Euron's party. The woman in the galley had been one of several direct invitations he'd already turned down, including at least two orgies. 

Jaime knows some agencies require their agents to have sex for the sake of the mission, but W.O.L.F. – and Catelyn in particular – never asks it of them. She always takes care of her agents' psychological welfare in addition to their physical. It's one of the reasons he's stayed with W.O.L.F., especially after injuring his hand. Cutting-edge technology may have saved it and made it nearly good as new, but the experience around the injury could have been deeply traumatizing if Catelyn hadn't been so insistent on taking care of both him and Brienne when they'd returned safely home. 

That entire experience – from mission drop-off to shared therapy months later – had been a seismic shift in his relationship with Brienne, and now here he is, searching a party yacht hoping he doesn't run into her so he doesn't have to worry about what the sight of her body will do to this pathetic excuse for a bathing suit he's wearing. 

It takes forty-five minutes, and two close calls with patrolling guards carrying very un-festive semiautomatic rifles, before Jaime is in the bowels of the yacht at a nondescript door labeled simply _Aft Storage_. It's got a decidedly hi-tech lock, though, and Jaime glances both ways down the hall before he kneels in front of it and gets to work. 

The speedo has a very small pocket hidden in the inside of the crotch and he slips a hacking keycard out of it, a fingertip-sized device that Catelyn's son Bran had invented. Thank the gods it's small enough for what he's wearing. Jaime's got no weapons besides his hands and his wits, so he hurries at his task before any more guards come this way. 

The lock clicks open twenty seconds later and Jaime sends a quick mental thanks north towards Winterfell before cautiously opening the door. It's dimly lit inside, but he can see a small metal platform with metal stairs that lead downward into a shadowy space. Jaime thinks he can make out the edges of crates in the large room, and his pulse picks up as he quietly shuts the door behind him, moving as gingerly on the noisy metal as he can. He's just about to re-lock the door to prevent unexpected surprises when he hears a footfall on the steps and he freezes. 

“ _Jaime?_ ” 

The good news is that it's only Brienne. The bad news, he realizes as soon as he turns to look down at her at the bottom of the stairs, is that she has, in fact, changed into the bathing suit Sam gave her. 

_Shit_. 

There's a pool of light here near the entrance that shows him exactly what he'd been most afraid of. Brienne's bikini is made up of three small, royal blue triangles – two covering the bare minimum of her petite breasts and the third covering just enough of her own pubic area that he can see she's at least been very tightly shaved. The bikini bottoms arch high up over her hip bones and he remembers from the meeting with Sam that it's a thong; if she turned around, he'd be gifted with the sight of her tight, round ass. She's wearing trendy sandals that tie around her ankles and she looks like a finely-carved statue that someone hastily slapped modesty patches on, only highlighting how immodest her toned body is. 

Jaime's first instinct is to bolt for safety. 

_Eyes up_ , he orders himself instead, staring into hers. It doesn't help at all; her blue eyes had been a beacon in the worst of the pain and darkness of the Riverlands, and every time she looks his way they warm him still. 

He feels blood and interest rushing lower and – absurdly – gets angry. “What are you doing here?” he snaps. 

She jerks her head back and glares at him. “My job, the same as you. Took you long enough.” 

“I'm sorry I tried to actually look like I was enjoying myself instead of disappearing at the first moment I could.” 

Brienne flushes in the way he's grown accustomed to, but he's never seen it travel over so much skin. There are freckles all over her shoulders and chest and a few on her stomach and more on her inner thighs and Jaime stamps down the stairs in such a fury that Brienne backs up off of them, her hands tensing like she's expecting him to attack her. He's not – and he knows from experience she can match him in hand-to-hand combat regardless – but her response has him hesitating at the bottom step. 

It's not her fault that her pale skin glows even in the dull lamplight, that the line of muscle in her powerful thighs makes his jaw ache with wanting to bite it. That when he looks up, he catches her staring at his own attire and her whole face is red, her full lower lip caught between her big teeth. Her firm belly goes concave on her sharp inhale. 

“These swimsuits are ridiculous,” Jaime says and Brienne nods, not looking at him at all now. He's got almost superhuman control of himself in most ways, but he knows he's at least half-hard and there's little he can do about it. Not when she's standing there looking like that. “Don't take offense.” He gestures down at himself. “It's just been a while.” 

“Oh,” she says and her voice isn't as relieved or sarcastic or even concerned as he'd expected. She sounds... No. She sounds like Brienne, and no matter how little her bathing suit leaves to the imagination – a truly minuscule amount – it doesn't give him permission to imagine yanking it aside while she rips his off entirely. 

Jaime swallows, digs his fingers into his palms, and goes to the nearest crate, bending to examine it. It's unlabeled, and nailed tightly shut. “Any crowbars in here?” he asks. He steels himself to face her again, finds her studiously examining the floor at his feet. “Brienne?”

Her head snaps up and she's even more bright red than she was before, her face nearly as dark as his speedo. 

“What do you want?” she asks sharply and Jaime lifts an eyebrow. 

“Did you find a crowbar?” he repeats, more slowly this time, and she huffs and folds her muscular arms over the bulk of her chest. It just puts more emphasis on her pecs and her biceps, the shadow of the soft inner curve of her breast. He wants to taste it so badly he's salivating. 

“No. I haven't been here very long,” she admits, almost embarrassed, like she's ruined the entire mission just because she was a little slow. 

“You still beat me,” he says with a sideways curve of his lips, and Brienne relaxes a little. Good. Just because he can't control his lust-addled upper and lower brains doesn't mean she should be uncomfortable. “Let's see what we can find to open these crates. Obviously neither of us has anywhere to store anything useful on ourselves.” 

Brienne snorts in amused agreement and they head in opposite directions to investigate the area. He barely resists waiting for her to leave first so he can get a better look at her ass. _Get it together, Lannister_. The mission comes before everything else. 

There are a number of crates here, all of them unlabeled, all of them smelling vaguely of metal and oil. Jaime's one hundred percent sure these are the weapons, but he's well aware of how thorough Brienne is with her investigations, how dedicated she is to following mission parameters and making sure every little thing goes in her reports. 

He wonders if she uses that same amount of care and concentration in bed. 

Jaime scolds himself for letting his mind run down a dirty alley again. He's a professional; he can professionally ignore her itty bitty bikini and too-large blue eyes and the acres of legs that would wrap so completely around his shoulders, and instead get the job done and then jerk off as many times as he needs to once they're in their hotel rooms. 

Resolute, he quickly finds a discarded hammer that he thoughtfully hefts. If he can get something to make a little leverage in the nails or the boards, then the hammer will do the rest of the work. Jaime takes it back to the crate, and Brienne appears from the other side at almost the same time. She's got an impressive-looking screwdriver that's the perfect complement to his hammer. They hold up their tools and grin in triumph at each other. Regardless of anything else between them, he and Brienne have always been an unstoppable team, their strengths matching the other's weaknesses, their understanding of each other hard-won and deep. He's glad Catelyn hadn't listened to him. 

A few minutes later they're staring down at the very long, _very_ illegal missiles packed in the first crate. 

“Mission accomplished,” Jaime mutters as Brienne sets the lid back down. “Let's check a few of the others, but I think it's safe to report back as soon as we get out of here.” 

“I agree,” she says, barely audible over the sound of her hammering one of the nails back in. Jaime gets lost in the way her thumb curves around the shaft of the hammer, the up and down stroke of her wrist. Brienne starts on the second nail. “These will be enough to put him away for--” 

“What's that noise?” someone shouts from the abruptly opened door. 

Their heads swivel together towards the metal platform, where two guards are standing, peering into the darkness. 

“Shit,” Brienne whispers. “You didn't lock the door!”

“You distracted me!” Jaime looks for a place to hide, but if the guards are worth their salt, then anywhere the two of them go will be discovered in moments. There's no good reason for any non-undercover partygoer to be down here, and Euron is notoriously paranoid, with zero conscience and a quick trigger finger. They have nothing but their two tools to defend themselves. 

Brienne meets Jaime's gaze and he sees her have the same realization of their only viable option at the same instant he does. They both know that there's _one_ good reason for two party guests to be down here.

“Be loud,” he tells her just before he backs her up against the crate and kisses her hard. 

Strictly speaking, he probably doesn't need to kiss her for the purposes of fooling the guards. But gods does he _want_ to. By the way she responds, all teeth and tongue and searching lips, he wonders if she'd wanted to just as much. They devour each other's mouths like they mean it, and Brienne wraps her arms around his neck in a possessive curl that brings them into contact from shoulders to knees. Her body is as powerful and soft as Jaime had imagined and he stifles the pained sound of discovery in his chest.

The clank of footsteps on metal shocks him out of the ocean of desire he's gladly drowning in. Jaime forces his lips to Brienne's chin, her neck, giving her free rein to make as much noise as she can while he palms her bare ass and looses his own gratified growl into her sunscreen-covered shoulder. 

“Oh _yes_ ,” she moans loudly. She slams her hand down on the lid of the crate in a noise that sounds enough like the hammer had that Jaime spares a brief moment to appreciate her ingenuity. 

The footsteps stop, but Jaime's back to himself again and he can sense the guards are still there behind them, so he doesn't let up on what is swiftly turning from a makeout of necessity into genuinely wanting to never stop kissing Brienne. Why would he, when her body is a sea of cresting strength under smooth skin, when her hands are tangling in his hair, tugging his head so his tongue is now tracing a path over the long shore of her chest. He gets to her bikini top and glances up at her for permission. She's watching him, her lovely eyes dark as the water at night. She gives him a small nod and he mouths her already-peaked nipple through the fabric. 

“Fuck yes,” she squeals in a tone that makes his cock swell so hard it strains up and out of his speedo. 

Jaime hears leering laughter faintly over the noises Brienne is making as he tugs at her barely covered nipple with his teeth, but he doesn't hear the door close. He chances a look up at Brienne and her head is tipped back, her eyes half-lidded and watching the doorway. He presses his lips to her sternum and whispers, “Guards?” 

She drops her mouth to his ear, sucks at the lobe and makes him shiver. “Watching.” 

“Shit,” he mutters. 

Jaime has been thinking about having sex with Brienne for longer than he likes to admit, but he doesn't want to do it in front of people. Especially not these people. Especially not the first time. His lips wander to her other nipple and he feels her ass tighten in his grip. Gods, she's solid muscle there, round and firm. He's gonna embarrass himself if they have to keep this up much longer. 

They're going to have to come up with an alternate plan, but he allows himself a few more seconds at her chest, dragging his tongue along the edge of the triangles damp from his mouth, her skin soft on his lips, leaving goosebumps in his path. Brienne makes a breathy, mindless-sounding gasp, and she's good at pretending but he doesn't think she's _that_ good. It stokes the fire already burning inside him. 

The crate is hip-high, so Jaime squats a little and then lifts Brienne up onto it and she digs her nails into his bare shoulders and scratches down his back like she's branding him and – _fuck_ – the hungry look on her face when he meets her gaze has him surging up to kiss her again, smothering her needy cry. 

There's more noise on the steps and then the distinct sound of the door closing and Jaime keeps kissing her because he's not sure which side of the door the guards are on – and also because stopping kissing her is the last thing he wants to do. Instead, he slides his hands under her thighs to urge them open enough to seat himself in between. She responds willingly, and then traps his body by winding the length of her legs around him and dragging him even closer. They're even longer than he'd imagined and he wants to bury his head at her cunt and let her legs drape over his back and-- 

Jaime scrapes his knuckles painfully against the crate and sanity returns for a brief, critical moment. 

“Guards,” he gasps into her mouth, and she moves her lips to his neck, his shoulder, her head tilting up slightly to scan the area. The angle is enough that he licks a long stripe along the curve of her jaw and tastes the salt of her sweat, the chemical taste of sunscreen. Jaime is certain Brienne will be too embarrassed to speak to him again after this, but his body is aching and their lives are on the line and she's wrapped so tightly around him her heartbeat is in his head. 

“Gone,” she murmurs and then rolls her cunt against his exposed length and his brain shorts out. 

_One more minute_ , he swears to himself. Just long enough to ensure the guards won't come back. One more minute of having her skin sliding along his, of feeling her heat against the sensitive skin of his cock, and then she'll pull away and mumble in shame and never look him in the eyes again. One more minute of her bright, high-pitched whimpers and then they'll stop pretending. 

“Jaime,” she breathes into his ear. Her hands are almost painful, holding him tight, each individual finger bruising around his waist. “Don't stop.” 

Perversely, he immediately does. He pulls his head back to look at her and, gods, her eyes are all pupil, her lips are reddened and wet, her skin shining. She looks like they've already fucked; he supposes they're near enough to it at this point, given how little their suits cover. He wants to fuck her, here and in the motel room and in the safety of his bed. But he won't do it just because she's afraid for her life. He wants her willing; he wants her to choose him. 

“The guards are gone. We don't have to do this,” he tells her, panting. 

Brienne can kill a person in a hundred ways. She's methodical and stubborn and more patient than Jaime could dream of being. She never gives in without a fight, and when she fights, she fights to win.

She wraps her hand around his cock where it's straining out of the speedo and he arches into her rough palm on a moan. “I want to,” she tells him, her voice a low buzz of desire that curls around his spine, urging him near. 

Jaime's not a man who waits for second chances. He thrusts up into her hand, her calluses pinprick spots of exquisite intensity along the thin skin of his cock. When he follows with a ferocious kiss, she returns it like she's the one who's been waiting for years. 

The unrelenting circle of her grip is enough to bring him near the edge and he rips aside the skimpy fabric barely covering her cunt, palms her, finds the trimmed hairs there soaking wet. She's hot against his hand, canting towards him eagerly, begging him with every undulating wave of her body, and he gives her his fingers, two of them sliding in with slippery ease. Her pleased little sigh shivers over his chest, tickling the hairs. 

“More,” she demands, guiding his cock towards her cunt, and he obeys, removing his fingers to drive into her on a ragged cry. 

“Gods, Brienne,” he manages as they pause, their bodies locked together and trembling. Under the scent of the sunscreen he can smell her arousal, and his own. This is not at all how Jaime would have picked their first time to go, but it feels exactly right nonetheless. “ _Fuck_ , I've wanted to do this for so long.” 

“I've wanted you to,” she murmurs in his ear, her hands opening and closing on his body, trying to pull him closer though there's no more of him to give. “For years.”

“I've dreamed about you,” he rasps and she shudders around him. 

“Jaime, _please_.” Her voice is guttural and pleading and impossibly vulnerable and he slides out only to thrust into her again and she gives a choked gasp. 

They are furious and frantic after that, though he knows he should savor it. Gods know if she'll ever let him do this again, but he's too enveloped by her clenching heat to give that thought more than passing consideration. He wants to spread her open and explore every last inch with the same dedication she applies to her work; he wants to show her just how good he can be with his mouth. But there's no time and he's got no willpower left; he is nothing but exposed need. Their hands and teeth leave marks, red and desperate, on each other's bodies. Jaime scrabbles for control, trying to draw it out, to squeeze every last ounce of pleasure from this. But when she convulses around him on a short, sharp scream that echoes and bounces off the crates, he comes hard at the pulse of her cunt around his cock. 

He slumps in her arms, Brienne easily taking his weight. They rock together with their heaving breaths, and she tangles her fingers in his hair and gently rubs at the nape of his neck. Jaime mouths the line of her shoulder and fills his lungs with her. He's hoped so long for this that if this is it, he wants all that she'll allow. 

“We need to report back,” she says quietly and he huffs, amused and disappointed and entirely unsurprised. 

He knows her too well to have expected anything different. He likes her too well to wish otherwise. 

Jaime peels himself off of her, tucks his spent cock back into his speedo while she slips down off of the crate and settles her bikini, making a face. “Useless,” she mutters, and without thinking, Jaime leans in and kisses her sweetly, suffused with a sudden tenderness for his utterly remarkable partner. 

Brienne goes still under the gentle press of his lips and Jaime immediately retreats, silently cursing himself. 

“Sorry,” he offers with what he hopes is a smile but he's not at all sure it's convincing. His mouth seems to no longer be under his control, though, because he adds, “I assumed since you'd just had my cock in you, kissing wouldn't be so offensive. Show's over, I guess.”

“You think that was just for show?” Damn her eyes, the way they shine with hurt that twists like a corkscrew. 

“Caught up in the moment, then. It happens.” He should be grateful that they had this much, but Jaime's never been good at gratitude. He always wants more – more than he should have, more than he deserves. Wanting _more_ is what ruined his military career. Joining the Kingsguard Special Forces under fucking Aerys Targaryen had turned his dreams of service into a nightmare. 

And now the yearning for _more_ from Brienne is going to ruin another path in his life, because he can't stay at W.O.L.F. if he feels like this and she feels none of it. 

Brienne's arms are wrapped around herself again, armor made of flesh and sinew, her eyes searching his. “It _happens_? So you didn't mean any of what you said?” 

He tries to recall what he'd babbled to her in the ecstatic headiness. He'd told her-- 

The truth. 

Surely she knows men who've told her prettier lies in the throes of passion. Jaime is positive she'll believe him if he backs off of it now; she never trusts what people say. 

Except she had said things, too, and Brienne is many things but she's never careless with her speech, isn't a liar just for a man's ego, and especially not for his. Jaime knows where he stands with her; he always has, until this moment. Perhaps even now, if the way her chin is trembling is any indication. 

They'd hated each other years ago, and now Jaime is tenderly brushing the lank strands of pale hair from her forehead. She shivers a little at his touch. “I meant all of it,” he says, risking the truth, and her blue-sea eyes go stormy with hope and fear. 

“Even the...”

“Yes. Though my dreams are admittedly X-rated.” His body is his again, the honesty comfortable in his chest. If she's going to turn him down, he wants her to have to push all of him away, not just the cardboard cutout he puts in front of everyone else. “We work well together, Brienne. In every way. If this was just a moment for you, if it was only the fear of death that made it seem like a good choice, then tell me, and it will never happen again. I swear it.” He shifts closer. “But if it wasn't... then, gods, don't run away now, before the target is achieved.”

Her lips twitch and there is a subtle shift in her stance, her body relaxing though she keeps her arms around herself. Jaime's worries fade away. “What's the target?” she asks, her tone reaching for lightness. 

“Me, obviously,” he says, and Brienne snorts and unfolds herself and he barely has time to admire the view before she's kissing him, less gently, but just as sweet for the firmness. 

“Target acquired,” she says, and they grin at each other. The boat jolts under their feet as the engines kick up. 

“Mission first,” they say together. 

Brienne turns to go and Jaime grabs her hand to go with her. She looks back at him, and he sees her eagerness to get back to work, the startled happiness in her eyes when she takes in their twined fingers, fitting together like they were meant to be there. 

They'll have to figure out whatever this is between them, and they'll have to keep it from Catelyn and their coworkers while they do, all while navigating a dangerous job with terrible hours and stress that can put them at each other's throats if they're not careful.

It's their most difficult – and important – mission yet. Jaime's lucky his partner is Brienne Tarth – the most stubborn, idealistic, and empirically sexy agent in W.O.L.F. 

Because with her at his side, there's no way they can fail.


End file.
